My husband and I became grandparents this week! My son and his wife welcomed their daughter, Hazel, to the world on Wednesday afternoon. It’s been an incredible journey, and I can’t quite believe it’s real. I’ve spent most of the past 48 hours staring at the pictures they’ve sent. (Thank goodness for that miracle!) She arrived a week ahead of schedule, so I was still knitting a hat for her. As I finished the final stitches, the shape of the crown set words whirling through my head. This draft is the result of a very happy, but very tired mind.

A Hat for Hazel

On the night you were born,
I knit you a hat.
At the top, stitches disappeared,
whirling, whorling,
spiraling into a singularity:
A galaxy of wool.

Outside, a billion stars whirled
overhead, glittering in celebration.

You stretched ten perfect fingers,
tipped with spiraling whorls
high above your head,
beginning your dance with the world.

Draft © 2020 Catherine Flynn

Please be sure to visit Jone MacCulloch at DeoWriter for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

“The writer should never be ashamed of staring.
There is nothing that does not require his attention.”
~ Flannery O’Connor ~

Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! I’m so glad you stopped by.
(Learn more about Poetry Friday here.)

I had big plans for hosting today. Alas, I’ve been under the weather this week, doing a lot of staring. Birds, stars, the moon, you name it, I’ve stared at it. But nothing has come together. So I decided to roundup some haiku I shared on Twitter in December for #haikuforhope.

feathery snow angel
reminds me
birds were here first

the moon does not
discriminate; its beauty
is free for all

after the solstice
bluejays and chickadees feast
for a minute more

pen meets page
portal to another world
reveals itself

Now on to the Roundup!

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Happy New Year! My Sunday Night Swaggers group challenge for January (thank you, Heidi, for this particular challenge) is to write about our One Little Word for 2020. I have been on the fence about even choosing a word. But over the past week, I’ve encountered the idea of perspective so often, I took it as a sign to consider this word. Without getting too political, it seems like perspective is in short supply these days. While I can’t change the willingness of others to see issues from a viewpoint other than their own, I can be more vigilant about being open to other perspectives myself.

To chose one word to guide my life over the coming year feels somewhat limiting, so it seems important that this word help me face challenges that will inevitably present themselves in the year ahead. Keeping these events in perspective may not be easy, but it will help me navigate them.

My mother once asked me why I write poetry. She thinks I have enough to do already. I thought about this as I tried to figure out how to write a poem about perspective. How on earth could I do this? The answer presented itself, as it usually does, while I was reading. In her essay, “The Mercies,” (which you can read in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage) Ann Patchett contemplates the life of the nun who taught her to read.  She writes “…when I can manage to see outside the limitations of my own life.” The perfect strike line for a golden shovel.

Be sure to see how my fellow Swaggers tackled this challenge by visiting their blogs.

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe
Linda at A Word Edgewise
Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone

And don’t forget to visit Carol at Carol’s Corner for the Poetry Friday Roundup.